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Following on from the success of our Pop Up Library Metadata Games sessions during Innovative Learning Week, this week we took Metadata Games to the City of Edinburgh Council’s Central Library, the first time the game has been taken off campus since its initial pilot back in August. We battled through the inclement weather and set up stall in the library’s ground floor foyer area then, poised with laptops and lollypops, set about recruiting people to take part in our tagging game.

We were keen to spread awareness of our work – and the university’s collections – beyond the confines of campus and we were also interested in to see if there was any noticeable difference between the sorts of tags that members of the public contributed in comparison to those provided by students, academics and staff (that analysis is yet to be done!). Over the course of the two hour session, 15 players, ranging from teenagers to pensioners, provided us with 776 tags (more than 50 per person) – an impressive total considering there was no free coffee on offer for participants on this occasion!

These tags will now be moderated and then uploaded to our image database, ultimately helping to make our collections more discoverable online. You can see an example of how the tags we have harvested from the game have directly contributed to the improved description of one of our iconic items, Rashid al-Din’s History of the World (http://collections.ed.ac.uk/iconics/record/51419). The crowdsourced tags ‘horses’ and ‘knights’, which were harvested from the game, complement the existing formal descriptive metadata showing author, date shelfmark etc.

We enjoyed taking the game on tour: many thanks to Bronwen Brown, Fiona Myles and all the staff at Central Library for all their help with the event, and to all players who contributed their time to help us improve the description of our images.

The aims of the sessions were to show off items from our art collection, get students and staff to try out the latest version of our metadata game, and to raise awareness of the importance, and ubiquity, of descriptive metadata, particularly for digital objects.

Players of the game were given laptops on which were displayed a series of digital images from the art collection. They were asked to ‘say what they saw’ by tagging these and then voting on the quality of other players’ tags. Points were awarded for the best descriptive tags, and the leaderboard was displayed on TV screens and projected onto the Holopro above the Main Library Helpdesk, thus creating a healthy sense of competition amongst players. If you took part, have a look at the leaderboard below to see how you did!

STUDENTS: TOP 10STAFF: TOP 10

Alongside the game, we displayed original works of art next to their digital surrogates in order to contextualise the tagging game: the digital images in our collections are representations of physical items and the information and details that can be seen in the digital object is often quite different to that which can be seen in the original. For digital collections, it is important that items are tagged correctly so that they can be found both in search engine results and within the image database itself.

The sessions were well attended, with almost 3,500 tags entered by over 50 staff and students. The tags obtained from theses sessions, once moderated, will be uploaded to our image database and used to improve the discoverability of our digital image collection.Why not play the game for yourself on the new Edinburgh Library Labs blog?

Pop-up Library is back for a limited time only in Innovative Learning Week (ILW) and we want you to say what you see!

Combining two of our most popular Pop-up Library sessions from last semester you will get the opportunity to play our 1980s inspired game, learn how tagging and metadata can help your studies and get up close and personal with some highlights from the University’s Art Collections.

This time we are not limiting ourselves to the 1st floor of the Main Library and instead will be popping up in other locations.

Pop-up Library has now packed up and there will be no more sessions this semester. After 9 weeks and 90 sessions we wanted to say a big thanks to all the students and staff who popped-up to these sessions and hope that you enjoyed finding out more about the Library and Museum collections, services and resources.

Staff at the Pop-up Library sessions spoke to over 2200 people, mostly students, within this 9 week period and enjoyed this unique opportunity to meet you and show off what they do. We were even happy to tell you where the toilets on the first floor are (for future reference when facing the two lifts go through the doors on the right-hand side and then follow the signs!)

Watch this space:

For further Pop-up Library events that we are hoping to hold next semester (popping up in a space near you?)

For your feedback. During the trial, particularly in the Be in charge of the library for the day sessions, you were asked to complete feedback cards on what you love or don’t love so much about the Library and suggestions you may have for improvements. We’ll post a summary of your feedback in the near future.

Are you curious about China? Do you need to find relevant resources but don’t quite now where to start? Are you looking for primary sources?

If any of these questions have popped up, please come along on Friday, 7 November, 10.00am-12.00pm to the First Floor of the Main Library for our Pop-up Library session!

We will tell you all about both Western and Chinese language materials available through the Library. We will show you how to use our different databases on China, which contain both English materials (for example, British Foreign Office Files on China, Chinese laws, etc) and Chinese sources (classics, e-books, newspapers, journal articles, etc).

Whether you are just curious about China or need some help with a specific research question: we are there to help, so please ‘pop up’ to the First Floor on Friday!

The Data Library team want to help you find data sources for your studies and your research. Pop up to the Pop Up Library this Tuesday between 10am and 12 noon, and tell us what data you’re working with, ask us any questions you have about finding and using data and we’ll do our best to help.
Pauline Ward is a Data Library Assistant at the University of Edinburgh
See the Data Library’s online Catalogue for more information.

Collaborate is a great resource for study groups or other kinds of group work as you don’t have to be in the same location. There are many different tools within Collaborate to make your group work as successful as it would be if you met up in person.

Interactive Whiteboard (great for brainstorming)

Application/Desktop Sharing (great to work on shared documents)

Load & Display PowerPoints (great for presenting)

Share & Transfer Files (great for sharing)

We will be having a LIVE! Collaborate Session during the Pop Up Library…come join in and see what Collaborate is all about!

(this session will be open from 05-Nov-2014 09:30 to 12:30 we would love to see you then)

This guide created by the Library Learning Services team using Resource Lists @ Edinburgh provides handy tips on how library services can be accessed remotely and off campus. It also provides information on h
ow to get the most use from Resource Lists and provides direction towards self-study in the areas of zombie outbreak and survival.

Library Learning Services will be up on the first floor of the Main Libraryfrom 10am-12noon this Halloween (31st October) to answer all your off-campus and Zombie Apocalypse questions.